


Spades Slick and the Giant Mistake

by Path



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures, Problem Sleuth (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, Mobsterswitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-04
Updated: 2011-11-04
Packaged: 2017-10-25 16:47:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/272519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Path/pseuds/Path
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Spades Slick, and you really didn't think this would be as bad an idea as it turned into. You just wanted to scare Pickle Inspector away from Problem Sleuth, was all. Not give him shadowy mastery over the very fabric of creation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spades Slick and the Giant Mistake

**Author's Note:**

> Okay fine I'm playing with shadow magic lemme see if this works

Your name is Spades Slick, and you are about to make a big mistake.

As ideas go, this didn't sound like a bad one to begin with. You just finished a set with the Midnight Crew while the entirety of Team Sleuth watched from the club floor. This is a first; usually only Problem Sleuth cares to go skulking around in your lounge after dark. But the whole team's there, so you have to sit through an entire forty-five minutes watching from the stage while Pickle Inspector pines for Problem Sleuth.

You really can't call it anything else. He started about as weird and gawky as he usually is, but obviously the jazz you poured over the crowd like gold dust mixed with cocaine had some sort of unexpected effect on him, because after a few numbers he stops watching other people and your band and starts watching (and then, practically swooning for) his leader. It's sickening, and what's worse, it's forever unrequited, which you know because you and Problem Sleuth are regularly wrecking each other after your gigs.

So, after, as people socialize and mingle, you shrug Sleuth off on Droog for a few minutes and ask Pickle Inspector for a few words. The words are "What the fuck, man?", which you punctuate by grabbing him by the shirtfront and drawing a card in his face. He flinches back, terrified, and you just threaten him further. You add a bit of magic in for good measure, the tiniest shard of the fury and possessiveness you've been feeling slipping away from you and coalescing in a puff of flame to coat your blade.

He scrambles away and gets a chair between the two of you.

You advance. "I guess I knew," you snarl, "that I'd have to put up with you if I was going to see Sleuth often." You throw the chair out of the way. "But I didn't think I'd have to put up with watching you mooning at him every goddamn day."

"Y-you... I'm not- please don't-" his words fall to pieces.

"So listen," you growl. "Fucking quit it. If that was gonna happen it would've happened already. So give it a fucking rest and back off." Maybe you're too possessive. Maybe you're just possessive enough. At any rate, the thought of him setting up this situation, this just-in-case thing for when you and Sleuth eventually self-destruct, so Inspector can catch him and be the supportive friend or whatever... that just makes you sick, and that makes you angry. And being angry makes you violent.

Oddly, Pickle Inspector seems to be made of (slightly) stronger stuff than you expected. He's probably just drawing on reserves generated by his doomed stupid love for your boyfriend. He sets his (weak) jaw as you approach, and straightens up. "N-no," he says, and his voice mostly doesn't shake. "No. You can... you can tell me to stop coming here, Mister Slick, b-but you can't tell me what I can't feel."

You almost laugh. But it's not really funny. "You know what?" you say. "Yes. I can. I'm the bigger fucking predator in this jungle and if I tell you to stop swooning over him, you'd better find yourself some smelling salts, because nobody's going to help you get back up from this one." You are, you admit freely, kind of getting off on this. Your skills get sold short because you're so, well, short. You've spent a lifetime making up for your unfortunate height. But Pickle Inspector, it doesn't matter how much taller than you he is, because he is a mouse and you are a lion, and you will fucking devour him and he knows it. He goes white and stumbles backward into the wall.

You laugh. Somewhere inside, you know Sleuth is going to rake you over the coals for this later, but you're having such a great time you're just going to have to deal with that when it comes up.

That's when it hits you, the worst idea, and the grin that spreads over your face is a truly nasty one. The idea is one of the worst ones you've ever had, and you are a monster just for thinking it. And the idea that you might actually do it is even worse. And yet...

You activate a GAMBIT SCHEMA. Violet energy pours through you and into the card in your hand, imbuing it with pulsing necrotic energy. Pickle Inspector looks rightly terrified. A frisson of loose energy pulses through the room, and somehow, even the room outside goes silent. This is like those weird oriental blades where once you draw them you have to wet 'em with blood before you put them away again, you remember belatedly. You really shouldn't have brought it out. Sleuth is going to murder you.

But then you think of Sleuth, and of this guy just waiting for the chance to step in, and that cold pleased cruelty oozes through your chest and curls into your smile. And you throw the card.

Really, you are such an idiot. Pickle Inspector screams as the violet energy flashes over his body and goes up in a brief bonfire. You can hear the footsteps approaching, but you still have a few seconds. You use them to finish your point. "That hurt, didn't it?" you ask. "So just remember. I can do a whole lot worse if you-" you pause.

Pickle Inspector stands slowly. He is no less freakish in his height and lack of breadth, but somehow, his gauntness is even more emphasized now, with his skin the same colourless charcoal as yours. His eyes are white, his clothes black, and his expression oddly and disturbingly curious.

"If you..." you try again, and the white empty eyes snap up to focus on you. He is standing again, and taller- you realize with horror he's floating. There is nothing beneath his feet.

"Oh," he says, simply.

"What are you-" you whisper, and you're cut off by most of the rest of your two teams barging in the door, led by Problem Sleuth, who freezes in open shock.

"Slick," he says, his voice heavy with fury, "what did you do?"

But you don't get a chance to respond, because Pickle Inspector, floating in effortless grace, sweeps empty beacon eyes over the room, and says again, "oh." He gestures, a motion of drawing in, of gathering, and softly burning violet fire collects in his hand. You have never seen so much shadow magic in one person's control. Another gesture, and his other arm is wreathed in flame to match. He bows his head a moment, then throws it back, and the beacons that project from his eyes are tinted like white under black light. Everyone in the room recoils.

"Oh," he says, and in his voice is sudden understanding.

This is when your huge mistake actually hits you, and the force of it drives you unconscious. But around you, as your vision fades bursts of white-violet light to black, you can hear Problem Sleuth yelling, and you are vaguely aware of the world coming undone.

"Oh," you think too. "Shit."


End file.
